Brütal Legend overload...!

[syntheticgerbil]

How would you even turn Brutal Legend into a Guitar Hero game without completely changing what the game is about? I mean I'm sure that's why that ill thought out effort failed, but it's funny someone even had the idea that they could in the first place.

Edited July 23, 2009 by syntheticgerbil

[Doorselfin]

I'm guessing that a few of the brains at Activision thought that if Brütal Legend wasn't a Guitar Hero game, it would be competing against it.

ANY GAME THAT REMOTELY REVOLVES AROUND MUSIC IS A THREAT TO GUITAR HERO.

[Karimi]

Activion's evil makes Karimi sad...

[elmuerte]

Guitar Hero sales are dropping, and they're blaming Brutal Legend for it.

[thorn]

How would you even turn Brutal Legend into a Guitar Hero game without completely changing what the game is about? I mean I'm sure that's why that ill thought out effort failed, but it's funny someone even had the idea that they could in the first place.

They probably wanted to use the guitar controller to do the in-game-guitar superpowers. Besides that, it was probably just a branding thing.

Brütal Legend: A Guitar Hero Game

Guitar Hero Adventures: Brütal Legend

or something

[Noyb]

Or, Heaven forbid, they would have replaced all the characters with the soulless shells of what became of Harmonix's designs. Lyta Ford -> Midori, General Lionwhyte -> Clive Winston, etc.

[Nappi]

Good news for once..

[Patters]

Good news for once..

about fucking time.

[syntheticgerbil]

Guess those bastards got some cash, but we knew this was going to happen.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Guess those bastards got some cash, but we knew this was going to happen.

No doubt they didn't deserve it, either. Gits.

[MrHoatzin]

Sooo, should Microsoft sue Majesco now for Psychonauts? This suit settling business is a load of bollocks.

[syntheticgerbil]

Sooo, should Microsoft sue Majesco now for Psychonauts? This suit settling business is a load of bollocks.

Yes, they still need to fund their golden ticket campaign that they wasted all on Psychonauts.

I wonder who won all five thousand of those bucks anyway?

Edited August 6, 2009 by syntheticgerbil

[Udvarnoky]

Wasn't it, like, a million? And it was cancelled.

[syntheticgerbil]

Wasn't it, like, a million? And it was cancelled.

http://video games.yahoo.com/news-1138630

I guess it was a multimillion dollar campaign with a few $5,000 prizes, not just one. My mistake.

But if it was canceled I guess it was a case of many will enter, none will win.

[Patters]

Damn the soundtrack is good. http://kotaku.com/5333045/ea-denmark-drops-brutal-legends-complete-soundtrack

I am fairly sure its the John Bush version of Metal thrashing mad, which is excellent.

[Roderick]

Not really because of Brütal Legend or anything, but I'm replaying Psychonauts at the moment, for the first time since it came out. It's in many respects still brilliant, funny, whimsical, charming and captivating. But I now also notice how terrifying it is.

In the sense that, there's a part of me that dreads the difficulty spikes. I also get the feeling, perhaps wrongly, that this is the obvious product of a team that never really made a platform game before. A more battle-worn team might have been able to iron out the fuzzy controls and the spikes, made the ride smoother. At the same time, the random thought pops up in my head that maybe it's just the genre of 3D platformer that's goddamn impossible to get right unless you're Mario on spherical planets.

There's also such a weird structure in this game. The first part, on the campsite, tricks you into thinking it's going to be a 'hub' like game, with a freeroaming overworld leading into many levels. But the game abandons that roughly halfway for a linear approach, as soon as you leave for the seabed. For the rest of the game, the campsite becomes redundant.

At the same time, the game has aged pretty well so far. Graphically it's still rich and beautiful, and only now do I fully appreciate how nice it is that the levels are chock full of things to collect (which I first thought erred on the side of overkill).

To feebly tie this into Brütal Legend, should we worry for another round of 'beginner's mistakes' now that Double Fine is tackling another unknown genre? At the same time, there's almost no doubt that the game will proffer something extremely charming and delicious again.

Edited August 11, 2009 by Rodi

[elmuerte]

As long as there are no "ending" mistakes I'm happy. I simply can not bear another meat circus.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Once again I have to say: I've no idea why people found the Meat Circus to be so difficult...? I would NOT consider myself to be an especially skilled games player. I used to be a gamestester and I know how good some people are and how distinctly average I am. I just played, enjoyed and completed Psychonauts years after everyone else, completely unaware of the so-called Meat Circus issues. It was only a long time after I'd put the game away that I learned about the controversy surrounding the difficultly of the last level, and I was totally confused... I didn't notice ANY spikes in the game (except maybe the cube level -- see, I bet you all found that really easy, didn't you?).

So I tried to do a bit research to understand why players (who were better than me) were found the last level so difficult. Here's the trend I noticed: They were using keyboard/mouse to play the game. Everyone who agreed with me that the Meat Circus was fine were using controllers.

I'd love to know if this still holds true.

Also, Brutal Legend stuff.

[Roderick]

That might actually be a nice experiment. I first played through the game on the PC and now I'm playing it on the 360. Let's see if there's any change!

There are definitely some spikes in the difficulty (the rotating cylindrical room in the first level, the blueprint tank, other bosses), but these might have more to do with the controls and the chaos that is prone to occur on-screen. I don't know what it is, but it's even pretty tough killing a single bear on the camp, let alone tackle the intricate levels in the game. I think it has much to do with the controls, but I can't really put my finger on it.

But I'm loving the experience, make no mistake. The characters are just so great and alive. Ford Cruller and his wacky antics!

[SignorSuperdouche]

For what it's worth I played the Xbox version and I found the Meat Circus to be infuriating. Just thinking about that spiral of flaming net is making tense even now.

[Thrik]

I found it pretty easy on the PC, using a keyboard and mouse. Definitely harder than the other jumping sections in the game (pretty much no margin for error in many parts), but not too much for me to deal with.

[elmuerte]

Yes, I did play meat circus with a keyboard. But if you simply look at the whole level design. It requires a near perfect run through for the first part. One mistake, and you drown. A bit to slow and the water has risen too much to finish gliding to the other part. It's just filled with instant death on a single mistake.

[syntheticgerbil]

The meat circus did take me a few trial and error type tries on the Xbox, but it didn't get to the point in some games where it goes past trial and error and just becomes a chore to do all the right moves and maneuvers until the next checkpoint. So yeah, after playing the last level, I didn't see what the big deal was.

Really the hardest part of Psychonauts for me was tracking down all of those phigments. There was really way too much of them, but at the same time the completionist in me sort of enjoyed the challenge. You also got rewarded with nice concept art, which made it all worth it.

Kind of like Windwaker, where I usually enjoy getting all of the items in a Zelda game, but getting all of the figurines was sort of pushing it. Especially when that whole task could have been made so much easier by small changes.

I'm just hoping Brutal Legend won't be too much of a collect-o-thon outside of gathering moves and things.

[MrHoatzin]

I ordered the PC version of the game, but for whatever reason it took forever for it to get to me (was it delayed? I don't remember), so I rented the Xbox version and played it on my roommate's Xbox. The meat circus took about two sittings of repeated deaths, one of which ended in me screaming at the TV, but in retrospect it wasn't too hard; I don't remember it as an exercise in frustration as much as others claim they do.

[David]

Babies.